justwrite 28 september

hen I was looking at the picture it clicked I had licked my eyelashes and the clash happened the collision between the present and the future forever sututred into the past this can’t last but on it goes and the rosy supposes turn out to be toeses of something larger the drainedout charger rushing about looking to plug in but bugging all the bystanders the openhanders waiting to be filled we have drilled this situation we are a ready nation as long as it’s something we’ve practiced hide under your desk until the test is over and when you emerge it’s victorious and the story is ongoing we’re following rules until they’re in our way and we play within bounds at least during rounds of assessment the best bend in the river the best jump into superlatives flashing and clashing in noisy fashion we are the winners the beginners if not the finishers and on we on we go and so on says our middle American poet he knows it and he draws it from a deep well and swells the stories he knew into something more true it actually happened and now it’s trapped in a different page a stage for all to watch a hop to scotch us together the weather changes but the curtain comes up and there’s a new pattern a smattering of what matters with commercials in between and a Christmas ringtone in late September a man with an urban health project sweatshirt making us wonder about its origin his swimming skin and where it’s been we have our own answers and we dance with strange rhythms in our heads the dreams in our beds rise up and go and so we’re lucky to believe come true but if that’s all you can ask for that’s a task for your own improvement just consider some forward movement and see where you get in the meantime you’re just fine but we can toss a little traction in and see what kind of reaction begins

justwrite 25 september

the wind fails the sails and the tide goes out

reappearance of doubt

the rainbow off the trout

waiting for the stars

feeling foolish for imagining—just a dotted line to tragedy—to sign on—to find fault with faith—to create escapes from tracks without stations—much less destinations—I am having conversations in my mind—I rewind times and repeat the same findings—a cord that’s untwining—I am meeting someone who is not myself—I toast both you and each other’s health—I will rearrange the punctuation—capitalize on the aggravation to water the pages in these middledraft stages—I am ready to talk about otherwise—it’s no surprise we won’t—despite promising reflections from various directions—needing exceeding reason—concocting hypotheses that no one needs to believe in—the theory that we all swim on our own courses jumping off our horses and onto our bicycles—the heart to heart cry fills no ears—wait until the seasons turn—the crop is burned in waiting—the cake devours itself in confusion—tired of feeling fired from a job I never had

The First To Turn In Bedding

passing back to a cold sideseat

last in the car

banged by the bathroom door

past warm wool cocoons

sleepflushed faces

unconcerned

here—mother and child together

this one—face upturned to catch dreams

justwrite 24 september

pants planted soundly running aground planted defeated on the first floor outside the first door and what’s more they’ve been ironed pressed into service then delivered in a nervous hurry a speedy worry to notice later when dressing calling the cleaner employing a meaner voice than necessary the scary voice that means something is capitalizedly Not Right it’s just a fight that can’t be won though the empty hanger hung slow and unnoticed a bonus that’s a negative giving up its load of taupe trousers refreshing our browswers we can see the mystery deepening the plot thickened steepening and what I have got to say next well it’s honest but unpleasant (like vain parrots view the pheasant) it’s a stranger who finds the remainder of what was once a suit unexpectedly distributed on the ground floor and—glancing around—adores the beige with an unabashed gaze glazing over like a doughnut with stickysweet treatedness and up he picks these free tickets and licks his lips hurriedly jabbing the elevator button in his escape to an unknown level to an unknown number where the hunger for such finds has led him over time to quite a scattered collection with no apparent direction correlated only by accident and scattered by traffic the kind that you laugh at when traced on a map but the truest there is when aligned on a graph which makes no sense but for the present tense let’s drench ourselves in the wonder of these wandering legs pegged in an unexpected role and folded into stillness into immotion

justwrite 22 september

there are ten minutes to spare and where they can’t be strung together they’re hung out to dry for another try and why not it’s a hot shot who’s not got else to say when there’s only one day left in his life by which I mean today because there’s no way to sat some knife won’t trim the threads instead of weaving them onward it’s otherwise absurd to waste such space I can tell you it’s straight true that the man across the table who will sleep in the upper berth is valuing what’s worth of his life he’s soft-chattering with his wife about what their child’s doing and he’s fiddling with his ring too young to be nostalgic too young for much too tragic and I wish him just this way every day but usually muchmuch closer so there’s no need for a phone but still here he’s not alone with that low and gentle voice as he asks himself aloud what’s interesting so he can tell her and the train’s about to leave so he lets her know this too and says an early goodnight as the yellowbrown overhead light turns his expression sepia he takes another swig of coke and leans back to gaze out the window into the oncoming darkness

justwrite 17 september

within the time it takes to raise the stakes I can bake a cake as flat as a house in the after picture when just before the hope was more afloat the root beer clearly important at such a juncture but what can you do in a country where truly there is none just stunned confusion reaching out for illusions which once were available also for-saleable in the most ordinary of places those accessible spaces ready and waiting for cars to park in the morning or dark when you need brown sugar or indeed something as precious as peanut butter just like which no other exists and it’s hard to resist imagining convenience not in a mean sense regarding the present situation but it’s beyond conversation to acknowledge that some things are just harder by which I mean all and to stall out in even momentary confusion is a truth that we live in every day anyway we are pleased with the beads that we’ve sewn on our jeans on the cross-country train and the sparkles remain when all the cows have come home when the ladies who roam for the day to sit off by the wayside and wait for the sun’s slowslide to slowdecide to wrap things up they’re stuck until then penned in by nature self-assigned to nurture those wide-eyed wonderers turning green to white to the absolute delight of dentists everywhere and I meant to care about something else but the path to best health presupposes flexibility and that’s a choice you’re free to make—will you bend or will you break—but in the transcription of sent thoughts I find I ought to stay true to what shoots through my fingers and lingers longer on the page like child dancers on the stage looking back at the audience with surprise and expectation seeking pages of imagination to offer up some explanation of what we’re doing here of overcoming fear

justwrite 16 september

the socket's come loose from the wall again it's a stall again to see what will happen next we've got the context set and the alarms all aflame but nobody's calling names in the dark it's a bingo game a spark of curiosity the catch and see wonderment a plundered bent-up hubcap spinning on in style the chrome rainbow of a smile reflected in collected shine it's fine for me to stir that sea and wave that hair but it's hard to tear away when there's so much more to say i am telling all the secrets to the honey and the bees sneeze in hilarious reply they try but as they must they laugh just fit to bust and who can trust them with those stingers zooming in with comeuppance to bringers and takers and winners and makers-off with prizes i've had these dreams recently and it's plain to see where they're coming from but i'm hard-pressed to guess where they're going to there's the storybook view and the antidote to which is waking up and a rusty cup of overnight water catching the color of an overlooked notebook yesterday's page blank as the stage of a show that's closed down in the audience a clown waits to check the dates on a digital wrist twisting the missed calls and curtain falls through the waterglass the lookingback the wonderland the easy command to enter and the drift through leaning back the track to run the sand to sun and all the rest to do there is much more true in all those grains than dreamt of in philosophical pains as the clouds switch back to nothing and the sun awaits its turn

justwrite 14 september

bending rules we tool around the shed looking for some pieces to put together to bang the weather out of the sky to shy away at the least sign we are poorly defined but easily aligned there are spaces and traces and of all these friends lending their footprints I’d rather follow my own of course but if there’s a different cart a different horse I’d be interested too and it’s quite another view to imagine that you and your own shadow could hold a candle to the way I’d handle any old deal it’s a feeling it’s more than exploring the last cup of coffee grounds astounding and rounding off cartwheels in high-yield backyards when young it was too hard to hurl my feet into the air and the rush of a blush to my awkward face the only one I’ve got there’s a lot of memory behind that expression teaching these lessons and learning what’s earning interest at the bank a tank full of fishers and not just of men which it’s raining but no training those cats and dogs no spitfire lights those logs let’s take notes let’s trend pokes in the wrong direction I am clear on these connections and I would rather not sleep in the dark the light’s too bright to park within and the answers that I attract can’t win at more than cards and low ones at that where the ace is a scattered half of a two and the stamps it might take for me to reach you just absurd haven’t heard a single word since I stopped speaking it’s clear that I’m seeking more responses but while the stars fall there is time and while the soap operas onward grind in parody of story all nestling with wrestling and other dramas we are the high llamas and the low hedgehogs marshing through the bogs we are getting our feet wet and dirty but there’s no hurry we’re learning how alarming such changes could be and I can’t disagree but there’s plenty to see from new views too think through ways to be true